_{A furry little bolt of energy ready to conquer hearts!}

Hello Holozing community! 🌈 Today I’m thrilled to unveil my latest creature design: a personal take on the mountain ermine – a hyper-energetic being with a fluffy blue neck and two tails playfully knotted together as if dancing in sync!

From its conception, I envisioned it mid-leap, capturing that quintessential blend of agility, curiosity, and charm. I deliberately avoided any trace of aggression; instead, it bursts toward the viewer with wide-eyed wonder – as if leaping to greet a new friend or chase an exciting discovery! Pure joyful adrenaline in design.

🃏 Collectible Card Potential?

The character's dynamic energy felt so compelling that I had to test it within the game's card format. And yes! You can see the final result at the end of this post. 👇

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🧠 TOOLS USED:

Photoshop (as always, my digital salvation).
Brushes: my trusty brush pack, with a few new ones featuring glitter effects
Soundtrack: On Top of the World - Imagine Dragons❕
Resolution: 2150x3000 px

_{(Thx to @holozing for such adorable creatures to bring to life!)}

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⏰ CREATIVE PROCESS

✏️ Phase 1: Sketch & Lineart

I already knew the pose I wanted – the real challenge was making it look like the ermine was jumping toward the camera, not falling! The solution came later when I painted the ground platform. For now, I just focused on making the pose explosive and filling most of the canvas.

🎨 Phase 2: Base Colors

As always, I separated each part of the character into layers: fur, blue neck, tails, head, and front leg. The blue neck was the first color I defined – I knew it would be the showstopper! I kept the rest of the fur neutral to make that detail pop. The intertwined tails were tricky though – I kept them on separate layers to nail the weaving effect.

🌗 Phase 3: White Fur

I ditched the sketch layer – let's be real, it was never pretty lineart! – and dove into painting the character, focusing on building fur volume. For this, I used my trusty hair texture brush but dialed down the opacity to blend the fur texture more naturally.

🌟 Phase 4: The White Lightning

I realized I went overboard with the hand – I'd drawn five fingers while the other paws only have three! So I removed one to keep the pose dynamic without overdoing the digits. For the background, I kept it simple. The star element is obviously the platform the ermine's jumping from. I added motion blur to really sell the creature's speed